Friday, February 6, 2009

Call Me "Dumb Quote" One More Time and See What Happens, Bitch!

We here at Robot vs. Dinosaur talk a lot about writing. But very rarely do we get to hear from our "writing helpers," for lack of a better term--the letters, numbers, and other characters and symbols that make up our scripts and even these blog entries. With that in mind, I will pass the proverbial microphone over to Prime, who you may also know as a "Dumb Quote."

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What did you just call me? "Dumb quote"?! Excuse me, but I have a name, and that name is Prime. You also have my permission to refer to me as the symbol for "foot" or "minute", as in, "The ' (minute) I hear someone call me a 'dumb quote' is a ' (prime) time to stick my ' (foot) up your * (asshole)!"

You call me a 'dumb quote', but it's the so-called "smart quotes" who have been sleeping on the job. In 1829, when William Austin Burt invented the typographer (the predecessor to the typewriter) he used me to fill in for both the quotation mark AND the apostrophe. Me! And don't get me wrong, I appreciated the work. Do you have any idea how rarely I'm used in my correct context vs. filling in for either the left or right "smart quote" deadbeats? "Smart quotes"?! They're "regular quotes" at best, and "apathetic quotes" at worst.

Next time you're tempted to call me a "dumb quote", think again. You should be calling me "Super Prime" or "Optimus Prime" or "Utilitarian Prime." Dumb?! Honestly.